He ignored my questions. He just looked down at his hands holding mine.
‘When you receive the third angel you will know that I am watching out for you, ready to care for you should there be danger or to comfort you in sorrow. The fourth will be wrapped in rosemary and I will give it to you in the church porch upon our marriage.’
‘Rosemary is given for love and remembrance. It augurs a happy marriage. How can it be that you know so much about the meanings of herbs, Tom?’
‘I’ve learned what you would want me to know.’
I’ve always remembered these words and how steadily he spoke them in his slow country accent.
‘That’s only four angels. You promised five,’ I said, ashamed to hear again, a hint of sulkiness to my voice.
A rat catcher, talking of angel nobles. He was a child playing games, inventing a future. Poor scrofulous wretches whom the King touched and cured were given these charmed coins.
‘You will have the fifth angel when our son is born,’ Tom said, and he ran off towards the outer courtyard and the rats.
‘Very soon, you will know my secret,’ I called after him.
He should have said I was his sweetest love and told me I was the pretty one, I said to myself.
Chapter 5
May 1558
White Boy lies at my feet, his head against my knees. I dab his eyes with a clout soaked in a potion of nutmeg, cherry tree bark and the seeds of wild sage. I feel his body stiffen for the mixture stings his swollen eyes before it soothes. After the treatment I cover each eye with a cool lettuce leaf and tie a clout around his eyes. They are nothing more than two lesions in his skull; sockets of pain. White Boy is quiet, taking pleasure in the makeshift relief of his suffering. His age in years can be no more than one score and ten. In truth he pushes three score. He asks me to tell him the story again, the one about the rat catcher boy and the weeding maid.
‘In the great kitchen at Greenwich Palace a rat boy has fallen in love,’ I tell him. ‘He has promised his sweetheart golden coins.’
‘More than he has to give,’ White Boy says,
‘He vows to be constant to his sweetheart.’
‘This, at least, he can afford, if he has a true heart and perseverance. Tell me more about his sweetheart.’
So I tell him again about the poor maid who weeds the King’s herb beds while she dreams of bright clothes, French hoods, furs and jewels.
‘The sumptuary laws forbid her to wear such attire,’ White Boy says. ‘Why does she want what she cannot have? Tell me, mistress, why is she is wasting her dreams?’
‘Everyone wastes their dreams, that’s what dreams are for.’
White Boy closes his eyes and asks sleepily, ‘What of King Henry? What of his dreams?’
‘Inside the palace the King has fallen in love.’
‘For the first time?’
‘Who knows? He has never behaved like this before. He has thrown everything away for his sweetheart: his wife, his daughter, a cardinal, the Pope.’
‘His immortal soul?’
‘Perhaps. He is likely to be excommunicated by the Roman Church.’
‘All because he dreams of love.’
‘There is nothing the King has not given to his love: clothes, jewels and a title; Lady Marquis of Pembroke.’
‘What more can she want?’
‘He has promised her a crown.’
‘Does he keep his promise?’
‘For a little while.’
‘Tell me about the King’s sweetheart, Anne Boleyn,’ White Boy says. ‘He has given her everything she desired. Has she used all her dreams?’
‘She has one dream remaining. She rests in her bright chamber with her feet upon scarlet cushions, dreaming of a baby boy.’
By the time my husband returns for his supper White Boy sleeps at my knee. My husband lifts him on to the settle the way you would a sleeping child. I bring a bolster for his head. We leave his supper in his place at table ready for when he wakes, put the tankard of ale where his fingers will seek his initials, which my husband has carved into the oak. We make everything ready for him for the early morning: yeast, flour, water, wood for the fire, a leather apron and gloves to protect him. The peel is propped up where it always is against the wall. My husband treads the clay floor, tapping his toes to ensure that nothing has fallen amongst the rushes to trip White Boy. We used to keep a cat against the mice but it would tarry under his feet or jump upon his lap to give him a fright. Mice don’t hurt him. White Boy stirs.
‘Tell me of Anne Boleyn’s coronation pageant along the river,’ he mumbles drowsily. ‘Tell me, mistress, of the sights I could not see for myself.’
‘Tomorrow,’ I promise. ‘When you awaken and you have done your chores.’
We watch him sleeping. I comb his silvery locks with my fingers. My husband unties the cords at the neck of his shirt.
Through him we show how much we care.
Chapter 6
28th and 29th May 1533
‘The court goes to the Tower tomorrow,’ the Clerk of the Kitchen announced, while servants from the outer courtyard finished their supper of oatmeal pottage at the long trestles in the great kitchen. ‘Mind you, here at Greenwich, we have plenty of mouths to feed, including carpenters finishing the renovations in the new Queen’s apartments while Her Grace is away.
‘However, coronations don’t come round every year. Those of you who abide here may go to the riverside tomorrow afternoon to see Queen Anne set off in her barge, just for an hour, mind.’
I was jumping up and down and hugging Father’s broad chest.
‘It will be interesting to see how many other folks will want to fawn on the whore in all her finery,’ Father said.
‘Hush, in the name of Jesu, husband, mind your tongue in company,’ Mother said in a low voice looking at servants around us who were dispersing to their various offices.
‘Others think as we do.’ Father steered me towards the door. ‘There’s work to be done lass. We cannot tarry if we are to finish our tasks before the bells call compline.’
In the courtyard Tom approached Father.
‘I will work all through the afternoon tomorrow, Peter,’ he said, in a tone that sought approval.
Just lately, I had seen Tom talking a lot with Father.
‘There’s no work for you in the bakery,’ I said.
‘Go down to the river tomorrow, with the others, Tom,’ Father said, frowning at me and patting Tom on his shoulder. ‘Avis may have need of your protection amongst the crowds. There’ll be beggars and rogues abroad.’
Without a glance at me, Thomas picked up his whip and darted away.
*
‘Hurry, Tom, everyone else has gone to the river, we won’t see anything if we have to stand at the back of the crowds.’
I was far too excited to eat my noon -piece of bread and cheese. Mother and father and several hundred other servants were already at Westminster Hall or the Tower of London preparing coronation feasts for Queen Anne and her guests.
Tom pulled little bits of bread from his crust and ate them slowly. ‘Anne Boleyn won’t go to the Tower without the lord mayor’s escort and the tide’s against him. It’ll take nigh on two hours for his barges to row from London to Greenwich.’
‘Couldn’t you have got through those pans in the scullery faster, Anthony,’ Aunt Bess scolded, turning to my lanky cousin who was eagerly tucking into my serving of bread and cheese.
‘Can’t work fast when I’m hungry, Mother. The grain in this bread is hard on the teeth, Avis. Does your father give us horse-bread?’
‘You eat too much bread for the good of your teeth and insult your uncle’s baking.’
My aunt boxed his ears and removed his trencher. ‘It be sinful to be idle and gluttonous.’
I held up a cloth bundle that I had hidden under the trestle for a surprise. ‘The pudding wife has made a few honey small-cakes for us to eat while we watch the pageant.’
; ‘They’ll go down well with a couple of jugs of ale,’ Anthony said. ‘It’ll be thirsty work standing amongst the crowds in this heat.’
Tom sighed. ‘I see it is not just the masters who are to make merry at Anne Boleyn’s coronation but the servants also.’
I glared at him. ‘If you don’t want to see Anne Boleyn in her barge, leave us to our pleasures and find something else to do. You’ll spoil the day for everyone with your ill humour.’
‘I promised your father that I would watch out for you.’
‘Aunt Bess and my cousin will do that.’
‘Master Philip and his gong scourers always need boys to help clean the jakes while the court is away. You’re not too big for that job yet,’ Anthony said.
‘A promise,’ said Tom, looking in my direction, ‘is a promise
‘We’d better go down to the water by the friars’ church.’
Tom led us through the outer court and around the gardens where white mayflowers covered drooping branches of hawthorn, like snow. Aunt Bess strode briskly behind, tall and straight, her coif, as always, tightly tied under her wide, square chin and again at the nape of her neck. Anthony ambled along carrying a pair of pitchers which slopped on to his shoes. At the riverbank, Tom forced a way through the crowds with a ‘make way if you please,’ and a ‘prithee stand aside for servants of the King’s household’ until we reached the little landing stage the Observant Friars used. Behind us the twin, turreted, tiltyard towers and the solid, square donjon flew flags in Tudor green and white. Before us on the river, along north and south banks, wherries and barges decorated with bunting rocked with the tide.
Tom waved towards a wherry in the middle of the river and a waterman waved back, rowed to the jetty steps and moored nimbly between a fishing coracle and a flat bottomed barge, both overcrowded with spectators.
‘Hop on lass.’
The ferryman held out his hand to me. I must have looked very surprised because Tom was grinning while he made fast the rope.
Aunt Bess stood still at the water’s edge. ‘Nay, nay, Tom, I’ll stay here. I lack the means to pay.’
The ferryman winked at Tom and they grabbed her arms and lifted her aboard. Aunt Bess plonked herself straight and stiff on to the seat beside me making the little boat bob about.
‘Avis dear, have your good parents called this wherry for us?’
I shrugged my shoulders.
‘It augurs ill to leave the wherryman unpaid.’
‘Never you fret about the fare, Mistress Bess,’ Tom said kindly, settling himself on the plank opposite.
‘He looks to be decent for all he’s a waterman,’ Bess mouthed in a half whisper.
‘So he is too.’ Tom was grinning. ‘Anthony, pass a pitcher to Master Lydgate. He’ll likely be thirsty after his journey from London town.’
‘There’s boats stern to bow, north and south banks for four miles right the way to the Tower,’ reported the waterman in between gulps of ale. ‘Every barge, boat and ship is on the river today all done up with bunting and bells. Every seagoing vessel will join in with a gun salute when the Queen’s barge passes.’
‘What? And her with child. Good lord above,’ Aunt Bess said, horrified. ‘That poor babe will be brought on before his time.’
Master Lydgate patted her hand.’ They’ll keep a safe breadth for sure, good wife.’
He pointed down river. ‘Now look you there, see that vessel with the painted canopy?’
A large gilded barge with eight pairs of oars swept through the water towards the city. Its occupants wore dark cloaks and hoods. Some of them carried lances. ‘See the big man in a black hood sitting under the canopy? That’s King Henry.’
Tom leaned so far over the side of the boat, I had to grab his shirt for fear he would fall into the water. ‘If it isn’t the King,’ he said as it passed alongside,’ I don’t know who else it can be. Look at his fancy, slashed shoes.’
‘If it is the King, why isn’t he showing off his finery for all to see?’ I said, peeved that I hadn’t had a proper look. I’d never seen the King.
Master Lydgate was waving furiously to someone sitting astern the King’s retreating barge who waved back. ‘I know, on great authority, by my mate there who’s a boatman for the King, that His Majesty goes ahead secretly today.’
‘Secretly?’
The waterman tapped the side of his nose and winked at each of us in turn. I thought he must have been quite old because there were little grey hairs growing out of his nostrils. ‘Today is the Queen’s day and the King don’t want to spoil it for her. People might cheer for him you see, instead of for her. So he’s gone privy like, to greet her at the Tower.’
‘To look out for disquiet amongst the crowds, more like,’ Tom said, ‘from those who love Queen Katherine and the Pope.’
‘Aye, maybe,’ the waterman said.
‘That was when I first saw the great King Henry VIII,’ I tell White Boy. ‘In disguise, like a commoner. Within a few months I was to see him a second time, and he would be weeping.’
Everything appeared to bode so well for the new queen’s reign with the May sunshine and the Whitsuntide holiday spirits of the spectators. Master Lydgate told us that Anne Boleyn had chosen, The Most Happy, for her queen’s motto. Her water pageant would be a much grander show than any of the lord mayor’s annual processions. ‘Such a pity my good wife cannot see this day,’ he said, heaving a great sigh, and he sprang on to the jetty.
‘He’s very sprightly for his age,’ Aunt Bess said.
‘Pray ye, make way there,’ Master Lydgate shouted through the crowd. ‘Come aboard, mistress, with those young’uns; they’ll see nothing back there. Let ‘um through if you please, sires.’
This was followed by a great deal of rocking of the little boat while three young children, their mother and a pair of new babes were assisted aboard. It was while this was going on, and my attention distracted from the river, that I saw amongst the crowds, the strangest person; a bearded man, with a dark cowl collar. The odd thing was his face. That was it, he didn’t seem to have a face, only pink wrinkled skin. From time to time during the afternoon, engrossed as I was with the pageant, I felt an urge to glance at this eerie soul who kept his sightless vigil.
Master Lydgate handed me a little boy who I sat upon my knees. I clutched him tightly round his waist to keep him safe from the deep water. He chatted constantly and I remember thinking that in time I should like to marry and have a perky, clever little boy to love.
That was twenty five years ago almost to the day, and I have never held my own child, but God willing, come November . . .
‘What’s that on that wherry?’ the boy asked, pointing upriver when the lord mayor’s procession of carnival barges finally approached to form the Queen’s escort. ‘Is it a dragon?’
‘Yes it is,’ Aunt Bess said, rising from her seat.’ It’s a red Tudor dragon. And it’s on fire.’
Master Lydgate had a difficult job persuading Bess to stay aboard. ‘There’s enough distance between that and us across the river,’ he said. ‘A few sips of ale will set you right. Pass the jug to your mother, Anthony.’
‘No need to make such a fuss, mother,’ Anthony said, taking a sip himself before he gave her the jug.
‘Is it a real dragon?’ the boy asked.
‘It’s mechanical,’ Master Lydgate said.
‘How does it work?’
‘Someone’s made it and put a fire inside it. I dare say there’s a man inside working the bellows to keep the fire going.’
‘Why?
‘To make real fire come out of its mouth.’
‘Geoffrey’s forever asking questions,’ his mother said. ‘He’ll wear you out, master wherryman.’
‘What are those creatures, throwing fireworks about?’ Geoffrey asked.
‘They’re wild demons,’ Bess declared and pursed her lips so that the furrows running down her cheeks made her face appear even longer than usual.
‘They�
��re monsters,’ cried the smaller of the two girls and hid her face in her mother’s lap.
‘They’re not real, silly,’ her sister told her. ‘They’re just men disguised.’
‘How do they make fireworks?’ Geoffrey asked.
‘I dare say the firemaster makes ‘um, not so far from here, at Rotherhithe, with gunpowder, lad. But how he does it, well, I suppose that’s a secret.’ Master Lydgate kept up a continual commentary. ‘Here comes the lord mayor’s barge; see the aldermen in scarlet cloth.’
‘Who is the lord mayor?’ little Geoffrey asked.
‘Sir Stephen Peacock’s his name, young lad. Look out for the golden chain around his neck when he passes by. Look ‘ee there, see, the shields and coats of arms, that’s the bachelors’ barge. See those hangings? Real cloth of silver and gold they be. The lord mayor’s haberdashers bought ‘em. Anyone who’s worth his salt has put out a barge today, never mind the expense. Aye, I’ll wager there be many a merchant on the water this day with less in his pockets than a pedlar.
A succession of decorated barges filed past us towards the King’s landing steps where they would turn about and tarry until the Queen and her ladies and gentlemen boarded their barges.
‘What a comely show indeed it is.’ Master Lydgate sighed again. ‘A great pity, so it be, that my dear wife be not here to see it.’
‘Is your good wife unwell?’ I asked, wondering whatever could have kept her away.
‘Nay, lass, I’ve been a widower these twenty years and more.’
‘Did you never think to take another wife, to keep house and make you comfortable?’ Aunt Bess asked.
‘Wouldn’t be fair, so it wouldn’t. I’d always compare her to my Sarah. Widower I am and widower I’ll stay.’
‘I grieves me to see a man shuffling through without a good woman to wash his linen and see he eats proper victuals,’ Aunt Bess said.
I supposed that Master Lydgate knew she meant it kindly but he made no reply.
‘Look, there, what’s that?’ Geoffrey pointed to a wherry carrying a giant effigy of a white falcon.
‘Well now, young sir, that’s the new queen’s falcon; the one that she has on her badge. See there, the crown on its head, and the red and white Tudor roses around it.’ Master Lydgate lifted him up to get a better view.
Mayflowers for November: The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn Page 3
